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ADDRESS 

AUGUST 1, 1826, 



JOHN ADAMS 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



By EDWARD EVERETT. 



WILLIAM L. LEWIS, CONGRESS STREET. 
1826. 



DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, SS. 

District Clerk's Office. 

Be it i-emembered, that on the eighth day of August, A. D. 1826, and in the 
fifty -first year of the Independence of the United States of America, William 
L. Lewis, of the said District, has deposited in this oflSce the title of a book, 
the right whereof he claims as propiietor, in the words following, to wit : 

' An Address delivered at Charlestown August 1, 1826, in Commemoration 
of John Adams and Thomas Jefierson. By Edward Everett.' 

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled ' An 
Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, 
Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the 
times therein mentioned.' And also to an Act, entitled ' An Act, supplemen- 
tary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of Learning, by secur- 
ing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of 
such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits 
thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other 
prints.' 

JNO. W. DAVIS, 

Clerk of the District of Massachusetts. 






<i,V 






■^1a^ 



At a meeting of the Committee, appointed to superintend the funeral 
solemnities at Charlestown, observed in respect to the decease of John Adams 
and Thomas Jefferson : Voted, that the thanks of the Committee be pre- 
sented to the Hon. Edward Everett, for his able and pathetic Address, on 
this interesting occasion, and that he be requested to furnish a copy for the 
press. 

Voted, That Dr. Abraham R. Thompson and Hon. Wm. C. Jarvis be 
a Committee to communicate the above vote to the Hon. Edward Everett. 
Tuesday Evening, August 1st. 



August 2nd. — The Committee appointed to communicate the above vote, 

perform with very sincere pleasure the duty assigned them, and hope Mr. 

Everett will comply with the wishes of his friends and fellow-citizens — And 

have the honor to be, with the highest consideration of respect and esteem, &.c. 

Abraham R. Thompson, ? ^ _.,, 
William C. Jarvis, > Commtttee. 



Winter-Hill, Charlestown, August 3, 1826. 
Gentlemen, 

The Address, delivered at a short notice, in respectful compliance with 

the wishes of my fellow-citizens, and under circumstances which otherwise 

would have led me to decline a public appearance at this time, is now, on the 

same principle, submitted for publication, by, 

Gentlemen, your faithful humble servant, 

Edward Everett. 
Abraham R. Thompson, m. d. 
Hon. William C. Jarvis. 



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ADDRESS. 



Friends and Fellow-Citizens, 
We are assembled, beneath the weeping canopy 
of the Heavens, in the exercise of feelings in which 
the whole family of Americans unites with us. We 
meet to pay a tribute of respect to the revered 
memory of those, to whom the whole country 
looks up as to its benefactors ; to whom it ascribes 
the merit of unnumbered public services, and espe- 
cially of the inestimable service of having led in 
the councils of the revolution. It is natural that 
these feelings, which pervade the whole American 
people, should rise into peculiar strength and 
earnestness in your hearts. In meditating upon 
these great men, your minds are unavoidably 
carried back to those scenes of suffering and of 
sacrifice into which, at the opening of their arduous 
and honored career, this town and its citizens were 
so deeply plunged. You cannot but remember, 



that your fathers offered their bosoms to the sword 
and their dwellings to the devouring flames, from 
the same noble spirit which animated the venerable 
patriarchs whom we now deplore. The cause they 
espoused was the same which strewed your streets 
with ashes, and drenched your hill-tops with blood. 
And while Providence, in the astonishing circum- 
stances of their departure, seems to have appointed 
that the revolutionary age of America should be 
closed up, by a scene as illustriously affecting, as 
its commencement was appalling and terrific ; you 
have justly felt it your duty, it has been the prompt 
dictate of your feelings, to pay, within these hallow- 
ed precincts, a well deserved tribute to the great 
and good men to whose counsels, under God, it is 
in no small degree owing, that your dwellings have 
risen from their ashes, and that the sacred dust of 
those who fell reposes in the bosom of a free and 
happy land. 

It was the custom of the primitive Romans, to 
preserve in the halls of their houses the images of 
all the illustrious men whom their families had 
produced. These images are supposed to have 
consisted of a mask exactly representing the coun- 
tenance of each deceased individual, accompanied 
with habiliments of like fashion with those worn 
in his time, and with the armor, badges and in- 
signia of his offices and exploits ; all so disposed 



around the sides of the hall as to present in the 
attitude of living men the long succession of the de- 
parted ; and thus to set before the Roman citizen, 
whenever he entered or left his habitation, the ve- 
nerable array of his ancestors revived in this im- 
posing similitude. Whenever, by a death in the 
family, another distinguished member of it was 
gathered to his fathers, a strange and awful pro- 
cession was formed. The ancestral masks, includ- 
ing that of the newly deceased, were fitted upon the 
servants of the family, selected in the size and ap- 
pearance of those whom they were to represent, 
and drawn up in solemn array to follow the funeral 
train of the living mourners, first to the market- 
place, where the public eulogium was pronounced, 
and then to the tomb. As he thus moved along with 
all the dark fathers of his name, resuscitated in the 
lineaments of life, and quickening, as it were, from 
their urns, to enkindle his emulation, the virtuous 
Roman renewed his vows of pious respect to their 
memory and his resolution to imitate the fortitude, 
the frugality, and the patriotism of the great heads 
of his family.* 

Fellow-citizens, the great heads of the Ameri- 
can family are fast passing away ; of the last, of 
the most honored, two are now no more. We are 
assembled not to gaze with awe on the artificial 

"^ Polvb. Historiar. lib. vi. 



8 

and theatric images of their features, but to con- 
template their venerated characters, to call to mind 
their invaluable services, to cherish their revered 
memory ; to lay up the image of their virtues in 
our hearts. The two men, who stood in a relation, 
in which no others now stand to this whole conti- 
nent, have fallen. The men whom Providence 
marked out among the first of the favored instru- 
ments, to lead this chosen people into the holy land 
of liberty, have discharged their high office and are 
no more. The men, whose ardent minds prompt- 
ed them to take up their country's cause, when 
there was nothing else to prompt and everything to 
deter them ; the men who afterwards, when the 
ranks w^ere filled with the brave and resolute, were 
yet in the front of those brave and resolute ranks ; 
the men, who, when the wisest and most sagacious 
were needed to steer the newly launched vessel 
through the broken waves of the unknown sea, sat 
calm and unshaken at the helm ; the men who in 
their country's happier days were found most wor- 
thy to preside over the great interests of the land 
they had so powerfully contributed to rear into 
greatness, these men are now no more. 

They have left us not singly and in the sad 
but accustomed succession, in which the order of 
nature calls away the children of men ; but having 
lived, and acted, and counselled, and dared, and 



9. 

risked all, and triumphed, and enjoyed together, 
they have gone together to their great reward. In 
the morning of life — without previous concert but 
with a kindred spirit — they plunged together into 
a conflict, which put to hazard all which makes life 
precious. When the storm of war and revolution 
raged, they stood side by side, on such perilous 
ground, that, had the American cause failed, 
though all else had been forgiven, they were of the 
few whom an incensed empire's vengeance would 
have pursued to the ends of the earth. When they 
had served through their long career of duty, for- 
getting the little that had divided them, and cher- 
ishing the great communion of service, and peril, 
and success which had united them, they walked, 
with honorable friendship, the declining pathway 
of age ; and now they have sunk down together, in 
peace, into the bosom of a redeemed and grateful 
country. Time, and their country's service, and 
kindred hearts, a like fortune and a like reward 
united them ; and the last great scene confirmed 
the union. They were useful, honored, prosperous, 
and lovely in their lives, and in their deaths, they 
were not divided. 

Happiest at the last, they were permitted almost 
to choose the hour of their departure ; to die on 
that day, on which those who loved them best could 
have wished they might die. It is related as a sin- 



10 

gular felicity of the great philosopher Plato, that he 
died, at a good old age, at a banquet, surrounded 
with flowers and perfumes, amidst festal songs, on 
his birth-day. Our Adams and Jeflerson died on 
the birth-day of the nation ; the day which their 
own deed had immortalized, which their own pro- 
phetic spirit had marked out, as the great festival 
of the nation ; not amidst the festal songs of the 
banquet, but amidst the triumphal anthems of a 
whole grateful people. At the moment that Jeffer- 
son expired, his character was the theme of eulogy, 
in every city and almost every village of the land ; 
and the lingering spirit of his great co-patriot fled, 
while his name w^as pronounced with grateful re- 
collection, at the board of patriotic festivity, through- 
out a country, that hailed him as among the first 
and boldest of her champions, even in the days 
when friends were few and hearts were faint. 

Our jubilee, like that of old, is turned into sor- 
row. Among the crumbling ruins of Rome, there is 
a shattered arch, reared by the emperor Vespasian, 
when his son Titus returned from the destruction 
of Jerusalem. On its broken pannels and falling 
frieze are still to be seen, represented as borne 
aloft in the triumphal procession of Titus, the well 
known spoils of the second temple, the sacred ves- 
sels of the holy place, the candlestick with seven 
branches, and, in front of all, the silver trumpets of 



11 

the jubilee, in the hands of captive priests, pro- 
claiming not now the liberty, but the humiliation 
and the sorrows of Judah. From this mournful 
spectacle, the pious and heart-stricken Hebrew, 
even to the present day, turns aside in sorrow : he 
will not enter Rome, through the gate of the arch 
of Titus, but winds his way through the byepaths 
of the Palatine, and over the broken columns of the 
palace of the CsDsars, that he may not behold the 
sad image of the trumpets of the jubilee, borne 
aloft in the captive train. 

The jubilee of America is turned into mourning. 
Its joy is mingled with sadness ; its silver trumpet 
must breathe a mingled strain. Henceforward and 
forever, while America exists among the nations of 
the earth, the first emotion on the fourth of July 
shall be of joy and triumph, in the great event 
which immortalizes the day, the second shall be 
one of chastised and tender recollection of the ve- 
nerable men, who departed on the morning of the 
jubilee. This mingled emotion of triumph and sad- 
ness has sealed the moral beauty and sublimity of 
our great anniversary. In the simple commemo- 
ration of a victorious political achievement, there 
seems not enough to occupy all our purest and 
best feelings. The fourth of July was before a 
day of unshaded triumph, exultation, and national 
pride ; but the angel of death has mingled in the 



all glorious pageant, to teach us we are men. Had 
our venerated fathers left us on any other day, the 
day of the united departure of two such men would 
henceforward have been remembered but as a day 
of mourning. But now while their decease has 
gently chastened the exultations of the triumphant 
festival ; the glad banner of our independence will 
wave cheerfully over the spot where their dust re- 
poses. The whole nation feels, as with one heart, 
that since it must sooner or later have been be- 
reaved of its revered fathers, it could not have 
wished that any other had been the day of their 
decease. Our anniversary festival was before tri- 
umphant, it is now triumphant and sacred. It be- 
fore called out the young and ardent, to join in the 
public rejoicings ; it now also speaks, in a touch- 
ing voice, to the retired, to the greyheaded, to the 
mild and peaceful spirits, to the whole family of 
sober freemen. With some appeal of joy, of ad- 
miration, of tenderness it henceforth addresses 
every American heart. It is henceforward, what 
the dying Adams pronounced it, a great and a 
good day. It is full of greatness and full of good- 
ness. It is absolute and complete. The death of 
the men, who declared our independence, — their 
death on the day of the jubilee, was all that was 
wanting to the fourth of July. To die on that day, 
and to die together, was all that was wanting to 
Jefferson and Adams. 



IS 

Think not, fellow-citizens, that, in the mere 
formal discharge of my duty this day, I would over- 
rate the melancholy interest of the great occasion. 
Heaven knows, I do any thing but intentionally 
overrate it. I labor only for words, to do justice 
to your feelings and to mine. I can say nothing, 
which does not sound as cold, as tame, and as in- 
adequate to myself as to you. The theme is too 
great and too surprising, the men are too great and 
good to be spoken of, in this cursory manner. 
There is too much in the contemplation of their 
united characters, their services, the day and coin- 
cidence of their death, to be properly described, to 
be fully felt at once. I dare not come here and 
dismiss, in a few summary paragraphs, the charac- 
ters of men, who have filled such a space in the 
history of their age. It would be a disrespectful 
familiarity with men of their lofty spirits, their rich 
endowments, their deep counsels, and wise mea- 
sures, their long and honorable lives, to endeavor 
thus to weigh and estimate them. I leave that ar- 
duous task, to the genius of kindred elevation, by 
whom to-morrow it will be discharged. I feel the 
mournful contrast in the fortunes of the first and 
best of men, that after a life in the highest walks 
of usefulness ; after conferring benefits, not merely 
on a neighborhood, a city, or even a state, but on 
a continent, a posterity of kindred men ; after hav- 
ing stood in the first estimation for talents, ser- 



14 

vices, and influence, among millions of fellow-citi- 
zens, a day should come, which closes all up ; pro- 
nounces a brief blessing on the memory of the de- 
parted ; gives an hour to the actions of a crowded 
life ; describes in a sentence what it took years to 
bring to pass, and what is destined for years and 
ages to continue and operate on posterity ; forces 
into a few words the riches of busy days of action 
and weary nights of meditation ; passes forgetfully 
over many traits of character, many counsels, and 
measures which it cost perhaps years of discipline 
and effort to mature ; utters a funeral prayer ; 
chaunts a mournful anthem ; and then dismisses all 
into the dark chambers of death and forgetfulness. 

But no, fellow-citizens, we dismiss them not to 
the chambers of forgetfulness and death. What 
we admired, and prized, and venerated in them, 
can never die, nor dying be forgotten. I had 
almost said that they are now beginning to live ; 
to live that life of unimpaired influence, of uncloud- 
ed fame, of unmingled happiness, for which their 
talents and services were destined. They were of 
the select few, the least portion of whose life dwells 
in their physical existence ; whose hearts have 
watched, while their senses have slept ; whose souls 
have grown up into a higher being ; whose plea- 
sure is to be useful ; whose wealth is an unble- 
mished reputation; who respire the breath of 



1 



15 

honorable fame ; who have deliberately and con- 
sciously put what is called life to hazard, that 
they may live in the hearts of those who come after. 
Such men do not, cannot die. To be cold, and mo- 
tionless and breathless ; to feel not and speak not ; 
this is not the end of existence to the men who 
have breathed their spirits into the institutions of 
their country, who have stamped their characters 
on the pillars of the age, who have poured their 
heart's blood into the channels of the public pros- 
perity. Tell me, ye, who tread the sods of yon 
sacred height, is Warren dead ? Can you not see 
him, not pale and prostrate, the blood of his gallant 
heart pouring out of his ghastly wound, but moving 
resplendent over the field of his honor, with the 
rose of Heaven upon his cheek, and the fire of lib- 
erty in his eye ? Tell me, ye, who make your 
pious pilgrimage to the shades of Vernon, is Wash- 
ington indeed shut up in that cold and narrow 
house ? That which made these men, and men 
like these, cannot die. The hand that traced the 
charter of independence is indeed motionless, the 
eloquent lips that sustained it, are hushed ; but the 
lofty spirits that conceived, resolved, matured, 
maintained it, and which alone to such men, ' make 
it life to live,' these cannot expire ; — 

These shall resist the empire of decay, 
When time is o'er, and worlds have passed away ; 
Cold in the dust, the perished heart may lie, 
But that, which warmed it once, can never die. 



16 

This is their life and this their eulogy. In these 
our feeble services of commemoration, we set forth 
not their worth but our own gratitude. The eulo- 
gy of those, who declared our independence, is 
written in the whole history of independent Ame- 
rica. I do not mean that they alone wrought out 
our liberties ; nor should we bring a grateful offer- 
ing to their tombs, in sacrificing at them the merits 
of their contemporaries. But no one surely, who 
considers the history of the times, the state of opi- 
nions, the power of England, the weakness of the 
colonies, and the obstacles that actually stood in 
the way of success, can doubt that, if John Adams 
and Thomas Jefferson had thrown their talents and 
influence into the scale of submission, the effect 
would have been felt to the cost of America for 
ages. No, it is not too much to say, that ages on 
ages may pass, and the growing millions of Ame- 
rica may overflow the uttermost regions of this 
continent, but never can there be an American cit- 
izen, who will not bear in his condition, in his pur- 
suits, in his welfare, some trace of what was coun- 
selled, and said, and done by these great men. 
This is their undying praise ; a praise, which 
knows no limits but those of America, and which 
is uttered, not merely in these our eulogies, but in 
the thousand inarticulate voices of art and nature. 
It sounds from the woodman's axe in the distant 
forests of the west : for what was it that unbarred 



I 



17 

the portals of the mountains ? The busy water- 
wheel echos back the strain ; for what was it that 
released the industry of the country from the fet- 
ters of colonial restriction ? Their praise is borne 
on the swelling canvass of America to distant 
oceans, where the rumor of acts of trade never 
came ; for what was it that sent our canvass there ? 
and it glistens at home, in the eyes of the happy 
population of a prosperous and grateful country. 
Yes, the people, the people rise up and call them 
blessed. They invoke eternal blessings on the 
men, who could be good as well as great, whose 
ambition was their country's welfare, who did not 
ask to be rewarded by oppressing themselves the 
country they redeemed from oppression. 

The day we have separated to the remembrance 
of our departed fathers is indeed but a fleeting- 
moment ; its swift watches will soon run out, and 
the pausing business of life start again into motion. 
But every day of our country's succeeding dura- 
tion., every age as it comes forward with its crowd- 
ed generations, to enjoy the blessings of our institu- 
tions, will take up the surprising theme. Though 
its affecting novelty will pass away for us, it will 
strike the hearts of our children ; and the latest 
posterity, looking back on the period of ihe Revo- 
lution as the heroic age of America, will contem- 
c 



18 

plate with mingled wonder and tenderness this 
great and closing scene. 

I shall not, fellow-citizens, on this occasion, 
attempt a detailed narrative of the lives of these 
distinguished men. To relate their history at 
length, would be to record the history of the coun- 
try, from their first entrance on public life to their 
final retirement. Even to dwell minutely on the 
more conspicuous incidents of their career, would 
cause me to trespass too far on the proper limits 
of the occasion, and to repeat what is well known 
to most who hear me. Let us only enumerate 
those few leading points in their lives and charac- 
ters, which will best guide us to the reflections we 
ought to make, while we stand at the tombs of 
these excellent and honored men. 

Mr Adams was born on the 30th October, 1 735, 
and Mr Jefferson on the 13th of April, 1743. One 
of them rose from the undistinguished mass of the 
community, while the other, born in higher cir- 
cumstances, voluntarily descended into its ranks. 
Although happily in this country it cannot be said 
of any one, that he owes much to birth or family, 
yet it sometimes happens, even under the perfect 
equality which fortunately prevails among us, that 
a certain degree of deference follows in the train 
of family connections, apart from all personal 
merit. Mr Adams was the son of a New England 



19 

yeoman, and in this alone, the frugality and mode- 
ration of his bringing up are sufficiently related. 
Mr Jefferson owed more to birth. He inherited a 
good estate from his respectable father ; but in- 
stead of associating himself with the opulent inter- 
est in Virginia, at that time, in consequence of the 
mode in which their estates were held and trans- 
mitted, an exclusive and powerful class, and of 
which he might have become a powerful leader, he 
threw himself into the ranks of the people. Indeed 
it is delightful to contemplate the illustrious exhi- 
bition of the powers of native genius, which the 
conduct of the Revolution presents us, and in none 
of its personages more conspicuously than in 
those on whose characters we now dwell. It 
seemed the will of Providence, in laying the foun- 
dations of a great system of republican govern- 
ment, to make it the occasion of displaying before 
the world, the heart-cheering spectacle of states- 
men and warriors, springing from the bosom of a 
plain and simple people, from the villages and 
mountains of a distant and despised colony, and 
triumphantly conflicting in the cabinet and the 
field, with all the accomplishments, the skill, and 
hereditary cultivation of the most favored children 
of the oldest and richest states in Europe. 

A propitious coincidence it was, that of these two 
eminent statesmen, one was from the north and 
the other from the south ; as if, in the happy effects 



20 

of their united action, to give us the first lesson of 
union. The enemies of our independence, at home 
and abroad, relied on the difficulty of uniting the 
colonies in one harmonious system. They knew 
the difference in our local origin ; they exaggerated 
the points of dissimilarity in our sectional charac- 
ter. They thought the south would feel no sym- 
pathy in the distresses of the north ; that the north 
would look with jealousy on the character and 
institutions of the south. It seemed therefore most 
auspicious, in the great dispositions of the Revolu- 
tion, that while the north and the south had each 
its great rallying point, in Virginia and Massachu- 
setts, the wise and good men, whose influence was 
most felt in each, moved forward in brotherhood 
and concert. Mr Quincy, in a visit to the southern 
colonies, had entered into an extensive correspon- 
dence with the friends of liberty, in that part of 
the country. Richard Henry Lee and his brother 
Arthur maintained a constant intercourse with 
Samuel Adams. Dr Franklin, though a citizen 
of Pennsylvania, was a native of Boston ; and from 
the first moment of their meeting at Philadelphia, 
Jefferson and Adams began to co-operate cordially, 
in that great work of independence to which they 
were both devoted. While the theoretical politi- 
cians of Europe were speculating on our local 
peculiarities, and the British ministry were build- 
ing their best hopes upon the maxim, divide and 



21 

conquer, they might well have been astonished 
to see the declaration of independence reported 
into Congress, by the joint labor of the son of a 
Virginia planter, and of a New England yeoman. 

The education of Adams and Jefferson was 
within the precincts of home. They received their 
academical instruction at the seminaries of their 
native States, the former at Cambridge, the latter 
at William and Mary. At these institutions, they 
severally laid the foundation for very distinguished 
attainments as scholars, and formed a taste for 
letters which was fresh and craving to the last. 
They were both familiar with the ancient lan- 
guages, and the literature they contain. Their 
range in the various branches of general reading 
was perhaps equally wide, and was uncommonly 
extensive ; and it is, I believe, doing no injustice 
to any other honored name to say, that, in this 
respect, they stood without an equal in the band of 
Revolutionary worthies. 

Their first writings were devoted to the cause of 
their country. Mr Adams in 1 765 published his Es- 
say on the Canon and Feudal Law, which two years 
afterwards was republished in London, and was 
there pronounced one of the ablest performances 
which had crossed the Atlantic* It expresses the 

* The copy I possess of this work was printed by Ahnon, at London, in 1768, 
as a sequel to some other political pieces, with the following title, and prelim- 



22 

boldest and most elevated sentiments, in language 
most vigorous and animating ; and might have 
taught in its tone, what it taught in its doctrine, 
that America must be unoppressed or must become 
independent. Among Mr Jefferson's first produc- 
tions was, in like manner, a political essay, entitled 
' A Summary View of the Rights of British Ame- 
rica.' It contains, in some parts, a near approach 
to the ideas and language of the declaration of 
independence ; and its bold spirit and polished, 
but at the same time powerful execution, are 
known to have had their effect, in causing its author 
to be designated for the high trusts confided to 
him in the Continental Congress. At a later 

inary note : ' The foHowing dissertation, which was written at Boston, in New 
England, in the year 1765, and then printed there in the Gazette, being very 
curious, and having connexion with this publication, it is thought proper to 
reprint it.' 

'The author of it is said to have been Jeremy Gridley, Esq. Attorney-Gene- 
ral of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, member of the General Court, 
colonel of the first regiment of militia, president of the marine society, and 
grand master of the Free Masons. He died at Boston, Sept. 7, 1767. 
* A Dissertalion on the Canon and Feudal Law.' 

This copy formerly belonged to Dr Andrew Eliot, to whom it was presented 
by Thomas Hollis. Directly above the title is written, apparently in Dr A. 
Eliot's hand-writing, ' The author of this dissertation is John Adams, Esq.' 
And at the foot of the page is the following note, in the same hand-writing, 
but marked with inverted commas, as a quotation, and signed T. H. 

' The Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law is one of the very finest 
productions ever seen from N. America.' 

' By a letter from Boston in N. E. signed SUI JURIS, inserted in that 
valuable newspaper, the London Chronicle, July 19, it should seem the writer 
of it happily yet lives !' T. H. 

This was said fifty -eight years ago ! 



23 

period of life, Mr Jefferson became the author of 
the Notes on Virginia, a work equally admired in 
Europe and America ; and Mr Adams of the 
Deforce of the American Constitutions, a perform- 
ance that would do honor to the political literature 
of any country. But, in enumerating their literary 
productions, it must be remembered, that they were 
both employed, the greater part of their lives, in 
the active duties of public service ; and that the 
fruits of their intellect are not to be sought in the 
systematic volumes of learned leisure, but on the 
files of office, in the archives of state, and in a most 
extensive public and private correspondence. 

The professional education of these distinguished 
statesmen had been in the law ; and was therefore 
such as peculiarly fitted them for the contest, in 
which they were to act as leaders. The law of 
England, then the law of America, is closely con- 
nected with the history of the liberty of England. 
Many of the questions at issue between the Parlia- 
ment of Great Britain and the Colonies, were 
questions of constitutional, if not of common law. 
For the discussion of these questions the legal 
profession furnished the best preparation. In 
general the contest was, happily for the colonies, 
at first forensic ; a contest of discussion, and of ar- 
gumentation ; aff*ording time, and opportunity, and 
excitement to diffuse throughout the people, and 
stamp deeply on their minds, the great principles.. 



24 



which having first been triumphantly sustained ni 
the argument, were then to be confirmed in the 
field. This required the training of the patriot 
lawyer, and this was the office which, in that capa- 
city, was eminently discharged by Jefferson and 
Adams, to the doubtful liberties of their country. 
The cause, in which they were engaged, abundantly 
repaid the service and the hazard. It gave them 
precisely that amplitude of view and elevation of 
feeling, which the technical routine of the profes- 
sion is too apt to stifle. Their practice of the law 
was not in the narrow litigation of the courts, but 
in the great forum of contending empires. It was 
not nice legal fictions they were there employed 
to balance, but sober realities of indescribable 
weight. The life and death of their country was 
the all important issue. Nor did their country 
afterwards afford them leisure for the ordinary 
practice of their profession. Mr Jefferson indeed 
in 1776 and 1777 was employed with Wythe and 
Pendleton in an entire revision of the code of 
Virginia ; and Mr Adams was offered about the 
same time the first seat on the bench of the Supe- 
rior Court of his native State. But each was short- 
ly afterwards called to a foreign mission, and 
spent the rest of the active years of his life, with 
scarce an interval, in the political service of his 
country. 



25 

Such was the education and quality of these 
men, when the Revokitionaiy contest came on. 
In 1774, and on the 17th of June, a day destined 
to be in every way illustrious, Mr Adams was 
elected a member of the Continental Congress, of 
which body he was signalized, from the first, as 
a distinguished leader. In the month of June in 
the following year, when a commander in chief 
was to be chosen for the American armies, and 
when that appointment seemed in course to belong 
to the commanding general of the brave army, from 
Massachusetts and the neighboring States, which 
had rushed to the field, Mr Adams nominated 
George Washington to that all-important post, and 
was thus far the means of securing the blessing of 
his guidance to the American armies. In August 

1775, Mr Jefferson took his seat in the Continental 
Congress, preceded by the fame of being one of 
the most accomplished and powerful champions of 
the cause, though among the youngest members of 
the body. It was the wish of Mr Adams, and pro- 
bably of Mr Jefferson, that independence should 
be declared in the fall of 1775; but the country 
seemed not then ripe for the measure. 

At length the accepted time arrived. In May 

1776, the colonies on the proposition of Mr Adams, 
were invited by the General Congress, to establish 
their several State governments. On the 7th of 

D 



26 

June the resolution of independence was moved 
by Richard Henry Lee. On the 11th a committee 
of five was chosen, to announce this resolution to 
the world ; and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams 
stood at the head of this committee. From their 
designation by ballot to this most honorable duty, 
their elevated standing in the Congress might alone 
be inferred. In their amicable contention and 
deference each to the other of the great trust of 
composing the all-important document, we witness 
their patriotic disinterestedness and their mutual 
respect. This trust devolved on Jefferson, and 
with it rests on him the imperishable renown of 
having penned the declaration of independence of 
America. To have been the instrument of express- 
ing, in one brief decisive act, the concentrated will 
and resolution of a whole family of States ; of un- 
folding, in one all-important manifesto, the causes, 
the motives, the justification of the great move- 
ment in human affairs which was then taking 
place ; to have been permitted to give the impress 
and peculiarity of his own mind, to a charter of 
public right, destined, or rather let me say already 
elevated to an importance, in the estimation of 
men, beyond everything human, ever borne on 
parchment, or expressed in the visible signs of 
thought, this is the glory of Thomas Jefferson. 
To have been among the first of those who fore- 
saw, and foreseeing broke the way for this great 



27 

consummation ; to have been the mover of nume- 
rous decisive acts, its undoubted precursors ; to 
have been among many able and generous spirits, 
that united in this perilous adventure, by acknowl- 
edgment unsurpassed in zeal, and unequalled in 
powder ; to have been exclusively associated with 
the author of the declaration ; and then, in the ex- 
ercise of an eloquence as prompt as it was over- 
whelming, to have taken the lead in inspiring the 
Congress to adopt and proclaim it, this is the glory 
of John Adams. 

Nor was it among common and inferior minds, 
that these men enjoyed their sublime pre-eminence. 
In the body that elected Mr Jefferson to draft the 
declaration of independence, there sat a patriot 
sage, than whom the English language does not 
boast a better writer, Benjamin Franklin. And 
Mr Adams was pronounced by Mr Jefferson him- 
self the ablest advocate of independence, in a 
Congress, which could boast among its members 
such men as Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, 
and our own Samuel Adams. They were great and 
among great men ; mightiest among the mighty ; 
and enjoyed their lofty standing in a body, of which 
half the members might with honor have presided 
over the deliberative councils of a nation. 

All cflorious as their office in this council of saares 



28 

has proved, they beheld the glory only, in distant 
vision, while the prospect before them was shroud- 
ed with darkness and lowering with terror. ' I am 
not transported with enthusiasm,' is the language 
of Mr Adams, the day after the resolution was 
adopted, ' I am well aware of the toil, the treasure, 
and the blood it will cost, to maintain this declara- 
tion, to support and defend these States. Yet 
through all the gloom, I can see a ray of light and 
glory. I can see that the end is worth more than 
all the means.' Nor was it the rash adventure of 
uneasy spirits, who had everything to gain and 
nothing to risk by their enterprize. They left all for 
their country's sake. Who does not see that Adams 
and Jefferson might have risen to any station in the 
British empire. They might have revelled in the 
royal bounty ; they might have shared the imperial 
counsels ; they might have stood within the shadow 
of the throne which they shook to its base. It was 
in the full understanding of their all but desperate 
choice, that they chose for their country. Many 
were the inducements, which called them to ano- 
ther choice. The dread voice of authority ; the 
array of an empire's power ; the pleadings of 
friendship ; the yearning of their hearts towards 
the land of their fathers' sepulchres ; the land 
which the great champions of constitutional liberty 
still made venerable ; the ghastly vision of the 
gibbet, if they failed ; all the feelings which grew 



from these sources were to be stifled and kept 
down, for a dearer treasure was at stake. They 
were anything but adventurers, anything but male- 
contents. They loved peace, they loved order, 
they loved law, they loved a manly obedience to 
constitutional authority ; but they chiefly loved free- 
dom and their country ; and they took up the ark 
of her liberties with pure hands, and bore it through 
in triumph for their strength was in Heaven. 

And how shall I attempt to follow them through 
the succession of great events, which a rare and 
kind Providence crowded into their lives ; how 
shall I attempt to count all the links of that bright 
chain, which binds the perilous hour of their first 
efforts for freedom, with the rich enjoyment of its 
consummation ? How shall I attempt to enumerate 
the posts they filled and the trusts they discharged at 
home and abroad, both in the councils of their native 
States, and of the federation ; both before and after 
the adoption of the federal constitution : the codes 
of law and systems of government they aided in 
organizing ; the foreign embassies they sustained ; 
the alliances with powerful States they contracted, 
when America was weak ; the loans and subsidies, 
they procured from foreign powers when America 
was poor ; the treaties of peace and commerce, 
which they negotiated ; their participation in the 
earliest councils of the federal government, Mr 



30 

Adams as the first Vice-President, Mr Jefferson 
as the first Secretary of State ; their mutual pos- 
session of the confidence of the only man, to whom 
his country accorded a higher place ; and their 
successive administrations in chief of the interests 
of this great republic. These all are laid up in 
the annals of the country ; her archives are filled 
with the productions of their fertile and cultivated 
minds; the pages of her history are bright with the 
lustre of their achievements ; and the welfare and 
happiness of America pronounce, in one general 
eulogy, the just encomium of their services. 

Nor need we fear, fellow-citizens, to speak of 
their political dissentions. If they who opposed 
each other, and arrayed the nation, in their ardu- 
ous contention, were able in the bosom of private 
life to forget their former struggles, we surely may 
contemplate them, even in this relation, with calm- 
ness. Of the counsels adopted and the measures 
pursued in the storm of political warfare, I pre- 
sume not to speak. I knew these great men, not 
as opponents, but as friends to each other ; not in 
the keen prosecution of a political controversy, but 
in the cultivation of a friendly correspondence. As 
they respected and honored each other, I respect 
and honor both. Time too has removed the foun- 
dation of their dissentions. The principles on 
which they contended are settled, some in favor of 



31 

one and some in favor of the other : the great fo- 
reign interests, that lent ardor to the struggle have 
happily lost their hold on the American people : 
and the politics of the country now turn on ques- 
tions not agitated in their days. Meantime, I 
know not whether, if we had it in our power to 
choose between the recollection of these revered 
men, as they were, and what they would have been 
without their great struggle, we could wish them 
to have been other than they were, even in this re- 
spect. Twenty years of friendship succeeding ten 
of rivalry appear to me a more amiable and cer- 
tainly a more instructive spectacle, even than a life 
of unbroken concert. As a friend to both their 
respected memories, I would not willingly spare 
the attestation, which they were pleased to render 
to each other's characters. We are taught, in the 
valedictory lessons of our Washington that ' the 
spirit of party is the worst enemy of a popular go- 
vernment ;' shall we not rejoice that we are taught, 
in the lives of our Adams and our Jefferson, that 
the most embittered contentions, which as yet have 
divided us, furnish no ground for lasting disunion. 
In their lives did I say ? Oh, not in their lives 
alone, but in that mysterious and lovely union 
which has called them together to the grave. 

* They strove in such great rivalry 

Of means, as noblest ends allow ; 

And blood was warm, and zeal was high, 



But soon their strife was o'er ; and now 
Their hatred and their love are lost, 
Their envy buried in the dust.' 

The declining period of their lives presents their 
own characters, in the most delightful aspect, and 
furnishes the happiest illustration of the perfection 
of our political system. We behold a new specta- 
cle of moral sublimity ; the peaceful old age of the 
retired chiefs of the republic ; an evening of learn- 
ed, useful, and honored leisure following upon a 
youth of hazard, a manhood of service, a whole life 
of alternate trial and success. We behold them 
indeed active and untiring, even to the last. At the 
advanced age of eightyfive years, our venerable fel- 
low-citizen and neighbor, is still competent to take 
a part in the councils for revising the state constitu- 
tion, to whose original formation forty years before 
he so essentially contributed ; and Mr Jefferson, 
at the same protracted term of life was able to pro- 
ject and carry on to their completion, the extensive 
establishments of the University of Virginia. 

But it is the great and closing scene, which ap- 
pears, by higher allotment, to crown their long and 
exalted career, with a consummation almost mira- 
culous. Having done so much and so happily for 
themselves, so much and so beneficially for their 
country ; at that last moment, when man can no 
more do anything for his country or for himself, it 



33 

pleased a kind Providence to take their existence 
into his hands, and to do that for both of them, which, 
to the end of time, will cause them to be deemed, 
not more happy in the renown of their lives than in 
the opportunity of their death.* 

I could give neither force nor interest to the ac- 
count of these sublime and touching scenes, by any 
thing beyond the simple recital of the facts, al- 
ready familiar to the public. The veil of eternity 
was first lifted up, from before the eyes of Mr Jef- 
ferson. For several weeks his strength had been 
gradually failing, though his mind's vigor remained 
unimpaired. As he drew nearer to the last, and 
no expectation remained that his term could be 
much protracted, he expressed no other wish, than 
that he might live to breathe the air of the fiftieth 
anniversary of independence. This he was gra- 
ciously permitted to do. But it was evident, on the 
morning of the fourth, that Providence intended 
that this day, consecrated by his deed, should now 
be solemnized by his death. On some momentary 
revival of his wasting strength, the friends around 
would have soothed him with the hope of continu- 
ing ; but he answered their kind encouragements 
only by saying, he did not fear to die. Once, as 
he drew nearer to his close, he lifted up his lan- 

* Tacit. J. Agricol. Vit. c. xlt. 
E 



34 

guid head and murmured with a smile, * it is the 
fourth of July ;' while his repeated exclamation, on 
the last great day was, Nunc dimittis, Domine, 
' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
peace.' He departed in peace, a little before one 
o'clock of this memorable day ; unconscious that 
his co-patriot, who fifty years before had shared its 
efforts and perils, was now the partner of its glory. 

Mr Adams' mind had also wandered back, over 
the long line of great things, with which his life 
was filled, and found rest on the thought of Inde- 
pendence. When the discharges of artillery pro- 
claimed the triumphant anniversary, he pronounced 
it * a great and a good day.' The thrilling word 
of Independence, which, fifty years before, in the 
ardor of his manly strength he had sounded out to 
the nations, at the head of his country's councils, 
was now among the last that dwelt on his quivering 
lips ; and when, toward the hour of noon, he felt 
his noble heart growing cold within him, the last 
emotion which warmed it was, that ' Jefferson still 
survives.' But he survives not ; he is gone : Ye, 
are gone together ! 

Take them, Great God, together to thy Rest ! 

Friends, fellow-citizens, free, prosperous, happy 
Americans ! The men who did so much to make 



k 



35 

you so, are no more. The men who gave nothing 
to pleasure in youth, nothing to repose in age, but 
all to that country, whose beloved name filled their 
hearts as it does ours, with joy, can now do no 
more for us ; nor we for them. But their memory 
remains, we will cherish it ; their bright example 
remains, we will strive to imitate it ; the print of 
their wise counsels and noble acts remain, we will 
gratefully enjoy it. 

They have gone to the companions of their 
cares, of their dangers, and their toils. It is well 
with them. The treasures of America are now in 
Heaven. How long the list of our good, and wise, 
and brave, assembled there ; how few remain with 
us. There is our Washington ; and those, who 
followed him in their country's confidence, are now 
met together with him, and all that illustrious 
company. 

The faithful marble may preserve their image ; 
the engraven brass may proclaim their worth ; but 
the humblest sod of Independent America, with 
nothing but the dewdrops of the morning to gild 
it, is a prouder mausoleum than kings or conquer- 
ors can boast. The country is their monument. 
Its independence is their epitaph. But not to their 
country is their praise limited. The whole earth 
is the monument of illustrious men. Wherever an 



36 

agonizing people shall perish, in a generous con- 
vulsion, for want of a valiant arm and a fearless 
heart, they will cry, in the last accents of despair, 
Oh, for a Washington, an Adams, a Jefferson. 
Wherever a regenerated nation, starting up in its 
might, shall burst the links of steel that enchain it, 
the praise of our venerated Fathers shall be the 
prelude of their triumphal song. 

The contemporary and successive generations of 
men will disappear. In the long lapse of ages, the 
Tribes of America, like those of Greece and Rome, 
may pass away. The fabric of American Freedom, 
like all things human, however firm and fair, may 
crumble into dust. But the cause in which these 
our Fathers shone' is immortal. They did that, to 
which no age, no people of reasoning men, can be 
indifferent. Their eulogy will be uttered in other 
languages, when those we speak, like us who speak 
them, shall be all forgotten. And when the great 
account of humanity shall be closed at the throne 
of God, in the bright list of his children, who best 
adorned and served it, shall be found the names of 
our Adams and our .Jefferson. 



